Local factory not in a pickle

Beth Slovic

Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 | 3:43 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

August 28 - 29, 2004

What's pickled here stays here -- about 2.6 million pounds of cucumbers, tomatoes and cabbage.

But it wasn't always that way.

When Michael Rosenblum, general manager of the Sunshine Fresh Inc. pickle factory in North Las Vegas, moved to the Las Vegas Valley four years ago from New Jersey, the local supply of New York-style deli pickles was limited.

A single, struggling pickle factory manufactured and distributed pickles here, he said. Thousands of sandwiches, if not millions, were reaching restaurant-goers on the Strip and across the valley without the item some people in other parts of the country had come to expect on their plates. A pickle.

Rosenblum and his partners, who had been operating a pickle plant in Bergen County, N.J., for five years, saw an opportunity. Rosenblum wanted specialty deli pickles to be as common in the Western United States as they are on the East Coast.

"If pizza can go national, and bagels can go national and Mexican food can go national, why can't deli-style pickles?" wondered Rosenblum, a graduate of New York University's Stern School of Business.

In the years since he first asked himself that question, Rosenblum and his business partners, who remained at the New Jersey plant, bought out the other local pickle factory and expanded the specialty pickle business to customers nationwide. In addition to the traditional cucumbers, the factory also pickles cabbage for sauerkraut and tomatoes.

As their business has gone national, it has managed to stay local, too.

Nearly 25 percent of the products pickled at the Sunshine Fresh plant, 4425 Vandenberg Drive off Craig Road in North Las Vegas, stay in Southern Nevada, Rosenblum said. They're available at restaurants inside the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Mandalay Bay, The Venetian and Treasure Island, to name a few. They accompany sandwiches at IHOP and the Red Robin. And families in search of pickles in bulk can find jars at Brooklyn Bagel Deli in Green Valley and local Smart & Final stores.

Now the company's distribution network in the valley represents more than 50 percent of the market share for pickle sales here, Rosenblum said.

Rosenblum was surprised and delighted when he arrived in Southern Nevada by how welcoming other businesses were to his ideas.

"This town supports its own," he said.

To give back, Rosenblum welcomes groups to tour the factory whenever it is in operation. Recently, groups of children from local summer camps have stopped by for the 30-minute tour. On Tuesday a group from the Cora Coleman Senior Center will visit.

The first thing the group will undoubtedly notice is the strong smell of pickling spices wafting through the building.

The smell, Rosenblum explained, is a combination of spices including cumin, dill and garlic used to infuse cucumbers during the pickling process.

A different combination of spices produces different flavors of pickles. Sunshine Fresh makes several varieties, including half-sours, sours, kosher dill, sweet bread-and-butter and hot-and-spicy pickles.

Inside a refrigerator the size of some homes, Rosenblum stores the final product, up to 1.4 million pounds of pickled vegetables at any given time. That's the equivalent of about 35 tractor-trailers packed full.

"It's a goofy little business," said Rosenblum. "No one every thinks about where pickles come from."